Authors: Chris Given-Wilson
Like their patron Gaunt, the canons of Leicester were probably a bit coy about their community's early support for ‘William the Hermit’. Repingdon himself was not present at his protégé's trial. Following an inflammatory sermon in support of Wyclif at Oxford on 5 June, he had been excommunicated on 1 July and would not be restored to the Church until he recanted in October. Nevertheless, he continued to be much favoured by both Gaunt and Henry, later becoming abbot of Leicester and then bishop of Lincoln, and soon after Henry became king, Repingdon became his confessor – a brave choice, for despite his recantation Repingdon remained equivocal about some aspects of the Church's teaching.
53
Lollardy was still in its infancy at this time, and action such as that taken by Bishop Buckingham helped to dissuade great men like Gaunt from patronizing Lollard preachers, but it would be another thirty years before Lollardy was driven underground. Swinderby's trial had not only brought Repingdon to Henry's attention, it also introduced him to controversies which, by the time he became king, had become much harder to resolve.
The second controversy involved Henry more directly and was the first sign of trouble between him and Richard II. Henry's manor of Passenham, in the north-eastern corner of Buckinghamshire, adjoined Stony Stratford in Northamptonshire, which was held by Sir Aubrey de Vere, chamberlain to the king and uncle of Robert, the nineteen-year-old heir to the earldom of Oxford whose intimacy with Richard II would soon make him almost universally reviled. In the spring of 1382 a dispute broke out between the tenants of Passenham and Stony Stratford,
54
which by 29 May had become serious enough for Henry to despatch sixty valets armed with bows to arrest the malefactors from Stony Stratford. A week later, Hugh Waterton
was sent to retrieve a horse stolen from Passenham: here he encountered five hundred esquires and valets from Coventry and its vicinity whom he managed to mollify by offering them breakfast (at a cost to Henry of nearly £2), but a few days later he had to be despatched again to try to reconcile the two sets of tenants. However, even this failed to resolve matters, and in the following month, at his father's suggestion, Henry sent Waterton and William Loveney to tell the king, who was at Easthampstead, that he (Richard) had been misinformed about the dispute, presumably by Aubrey de Vere, or perhaps his nephew.
55
Whatever the outcome, this seems to have settled the matter, but it had afforded an object lesson in curial politics from Gaunt to his son. Henry must have encountered Aubrey and Robert de Vere on a number of occasions, for like him they were both much in evidence at court. Gaunt, too, was well aware of the influence which the de Veres exercised over the young king, but he probably thought Henry's decision to despatch sixty bowmen to Passenham to be an overreaction liable to escalate a dispute between tenants into a dispute between their lords. What Gaunt understood better than his son was the importance of ensuring that the king heard both sides of the story. Sixteen years later, when much graver danger threatened, it was a lesson Henry would act upon.
1
J. Palmer, ‘The Historical Context of the
Book of the Duchess
: a Revision’,
Chaucer Review
8 (1974), 253–6;
The Register of Thomas Appleby of Carlisle
, ed. R. Storey (Canterbury and York Society, Woodbridge, 2006), no. 166; Chaucer,
The Book of the Duchess
, ed. Helen Phillips (Durham and St Andrews Medieval Texts, 1982), ll. 948–50 (pp. 4, 108).
2
Goodman,
John of Gaunt
, 48–50;
JGR I
, nos. 299 (dated September 1373, not 1372), 524–5, 535–6, 1236. The three children's household cost 300 marks a year, paid to John Cheyne, treasurer of their chamber.
3
JGR I
, no. 1342; for the date of birth of John, the eldest Beaufort, see S. Walker, ‘Katherine, Duchess of Lancaster’,
ODNB
, 30.888–90. Sir Hugh Swynford, Katherine's first husband, died in November 1371.
4
JGR I
, nos. 679, 1614; Walker,
Lancastrian Affinity
, 29 and n. 86.
5
DL 28/3/1, m. 12; Mountendre was a former retainer of the great Gascon warlord the Captal de Buch (Walker,
Lancastrian Affinity
, 54, 71, and SC 8/258/12863 and 300/14973). In 1376–7 Gaunt allocated separate sums to Henry (£61) and his two elder sisters (£200), indicating that he was being brought up separately from them at least in some respects (DL 28/3/1, m. 5). For other gifts from Gaunt to Henry see
JGR I
, 1342, 1614, and
JGR II
, no. 715.
6
For £20 allocated to Gaunt's esquire Hugh Waterton to cover Henry's expenses while he was ‘staying in the company of the lord prince [Richard]’, see DL 28/3/1, m. 12, dated 10 May 1377.
7
Anonimalle Chronicle 1333–1381
, ed. V. H. Galbraith (Manchester, 1927), 106; Richard's household account records the purchase for 10s of three swords for this occasion, for himself, Henry, and the son of John d'Arundel, younger brother of the earl of Arundel (E 101/398/9, m. 2), and in 1378 Gaunt levied an aid from his tenants for the knighting of his eldest son (
JGR II
, no. 320). Those knighted with Richard and Henry were Thomas of Woodstock (youngest son of Edward III), Robert earl of Oxford, Lords Beaumont and Mowbray, the sons of the earls of Stafford and Salisbury, the three sons of Henry Lord Percy, and John Sotheray (illegitimate son of Edward III by his mistress, Alice Perrers): E 101/397/20, m. 28.
8
Somerville,
Duchy of Lancaster
, i.67 and n. 4.
9
English Coronation Records
, ed. J. Wickham Legg (London, 1901), 132, 149;
Anonimalle Chronicle
, 114.
10
E 101/400/4, mm. 4, 15–18. Liveries to Henry from the Great Wardrobe during the first two years of the reign included a parti-coloured gown and hood of russet and mottled green of the king's livery for the hunting season; a pelisse (fur-trimmed cloak) of grey, decorated with white chevrons and a maunch collar, plus two further long cloaks and doublets for the winter; a robe of gilded blue brocade, two gowns and two cloaks with hoods for Christmas 1377; three coats of blue silk brocade of the king's livery at Easter 1378; a gown ‘for hawking’ during the winter of 1378–9; another gown ‘for the hunting season’ during the summer of 1379; and, at various times during these two years, a further fourteen sets of robes, a pair of sheets for his chamber, and several pairs of stockings, slippers, boots, galoshes and gilded spurs. His Garter robes bear witness to his physical development at this time, for in April 1378, when the other Garter knights were each allocated five ells of cloth from which to fashion their robes, Henry, who had just passed his eleventh birthday, received only three ells; a year later, however, he received the full five ells. One ell was roughly 45 inches (114 centimetres).
11
JGR II
, no. 463.
12
CPR 1374–7
, 337.
13
A. Tuck, ‘Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester’,
ODNB
, 54.277–83.
14
CPR 1377–81
, 502;
CCR 1377–81
, 390–5, 439–40;
CCR 1381–5
, 269.
15
Jean Froissart,
Chronicles of England, France, Spain and the Adjoining Countries
, ed. and trans. T. Johnes (2 vols, London, 1848), i.623–4. This story comes from a variant manuscript of Froissart's chronicles used by Johnes, but subsequently destroyed by fire. Cf. G. Holmes,
The Estates of the Higher Nobility in Fourteenth-Century England
(Cambridge, 1957), 24 and n. 6.
16
N. Saul,
Richard II
(New Haven, 1997), 52–5.
17
CPR 1377–81
, 537 (27 July 1380): her marriage was said to be valued at 5,000 marks (£3,333), but Gaunt paid nothing for it, since it was offset against a larger sum already owed to him for his wages of war. The terms of the grant also included the important concession that if either Henry or Mary were to die without issue before she reached the age of nineteen, Gaunt would be repaid his 5,000 marks.
18
Froissart claimed that ‘the marriage was instantly consummated’, but this was precipitate. He also got several other details of the story wrong, such as calling the two sisters Blanche and Isabel and saying that it was their ‘aunt’ who carried Mary away from Pleshey, but the essentials of his story are corroborated by other sources and undoubtedly correct. Countess Joan was complicit in the plot, presumably hoping to give her daughter a life outside the convent. She probably commissioned a pair of illuminated psalters for the marriage (see below, p. 79).
19
CCR 1377–81
, 439–40; for the 5 February date, see
CPR 1381–5
, 95; BL Add. MS 5,937, fo. 74.
20
JGR II
, nos. 556, 688; Gaunt also paid forty shillings ‘for that number of pennies placed on the [service] book on the day of the wedding [esposailes]’, and for various sums offered in alms. Among the wedding gifts were two gilded cloths later sold by Henry in London for £12: DL 28/1/1, fo. 1.
21
Saul,
Richard II
, 55.
22
Froissart,
Chronicles
, ed. Johnes, i.624.
23
Knighton
, 210–12.
24
An esquire of Gaunt's called Grenefeld was beheaded in London that day: Goodman,
John of Gaunt
, 79.
25
R. Dobson,
The Peasants' Revolt of 1381
(London, 1970), 155–208; according to the Westminster chronicler, the executions of Sudbury and Hales took place ‘at the eleventh hour’ on 14 June (ibid., 201).
26
E 37/28; he may, however, have been the ‘John Ferrour of Rochester’, pardoned for homicide in March 1380:
CPR 1377–81
, 456.
27
E 361/5, m. 19; also sent out were the earls of Buckingham, Kent, Salisbury, Warwick and Suffolk; Cf.
SAC I
, 507.
28
Waterton's account is DL 28/1/1, a well preserved vellum book of eleven folios.
29
Herle had bought a missal costing ten marks for Henry's use in 1377: DL 28/1/1, mm. 7, 12;
JGR II
, nos. 93, 206, 308a, 993.
30
DL 28/1/1., fos. 1r–2v. Special occasions naturally required special garments: for Christmas 1381, Henry had a ‘royal cloak’ (
clocum regalis
) made for him; for the Garter Day festivities at Windsor in April, he had a ‘mantle of St George’ costing £4 made from blue brocade, and for Queen Anne's marriage and coronation in London on 22 January 1382 he also had new and ornate robes made up.
31
Ibid., fo. 3v.
32
Ibid., fos. 5r–6r.
33
Ibid., fos. 4r, 6r–v, 10v. On the latter occasion, he purchased six new lances, while for the jousts at Windsor he bought a new saddle, reins and harness, all gilded and costing 23s; for the Smithfield jousts he acquired two new pairs of spurs as well as the copper sequins noted above. His armour and swords were kept in his wardrobe in Coleman Street, London.
34
Ibid., fos. 3v, 6r.
35
Ibid., fos. 4r–v.
36
Henry also received an
annidonum
(New Year gift) from King Richard, and another from the queen mother, Princess Joan: ibid., fo. 5r.
37
Ibid., fos. 6r, 10r.
38
Ibid., 2r, 3r, 5r–v. They gave him material for garments, loaned him their servants and craftsmen, and paid for some of his alms and presents.
39
Soham yielded £125, Daventry £60, and Passenham just 10 marks: ibid., fo. 1r. For Soham, see the unfinished entry in
JGR II
, no. 706, probably from the spring of 1382, for on 13 April Henry sent his servant William the Purveyor to receive seisin of the manor on his behalf: DL 28/3/1, fo. 8v.
40
Indications of his whereabouts are scattered throughout DL 28/1/1, indicated with varying degrees of reliability by places where purchases were made (not very reliable), alms and gifts were distributed (more reliable), messengers were despatched, and so forth.
41
For Gaunt's itinerary in 1381–2 see Goodman,
John of Gaunt
, 89–93.
42
JGR II
, nos. 646, 679, 996; BL Add. MS 5,937, fo. 74.
43
DL 28/1/1, fo. 5r: he gave 40s to the boy's mistress and 26s 8d to his nurse. He also gave 66s 8d on 16 April to ‘an esquire of my lord of Buckingham called Westcombe bringing news to my lord that his lady was delivered of a boy’. This entry has caused confusion in the past, leading to the belief that the ‘lady’ referred to here was Henry's own wife, Mary, and that this record therefore contains the only surviving evidence of their first child, a boy presumed to have died in infancy. For the correct reading, see Mortimer,
Fears
, 370–1.
44
DL 28/1/1, fo. 9v: expenses of Hugh Waterton for a journey from Higham Ferrers to Daventry on 4 July, ‘
et revenit ad dominum apud Lincoln xi die Julii
’.
45
Knighton
, 308–9, 312.
46
Goodman,
John of Gaunt
, 241–65.
47
A. Hudson,
The Premature Reformation
(Oxford, 1988), 77.
48
Knighton
, 308.
49
Knighton
, 310;
Fasciculi Zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wyclif cum Tritico
, ed. W. W. Shirley (RS, London, 1858), 337–9; Hudson,
Premature Reformation
, 74–5, 352–3.
50
Knighton
, 312.